4 Google Tools Every Tour Operator Should Use

What Can Google Do For Your Tour Business?

How many Google tools are you using? ‘Google’ has long been synonymous with searching for absolutely anything on the internet. While its search engine certainly is a huge part of why Google is so popular to most people (and why it’s so important to use SEO best practices that ensure your tour business is showing up in the search results), that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For activity providers and travel companies, Google can–and should–be your best friend.

You’ll benefit immensely by learning to take advantage of the many other business tools and services that Google offers, which is exactly what we’ll be discussing today. Join us as we explore just some of the things that Google tools can do for your tour business, from providing robust Google Analytics to sharing your tours through the incredibly helpful Google Things To Do.

Use Google Analytics to Understand Your Tour Business’s Audience

As a tour operator, you want to see your business thrive, and you want to do everything that you can to help it grow. The big question is – where do you start? It can be difficult knowing what steps to take with other Google tools or where to focus your energy if you don’t have data to guide your decisions. With Google Analytics, you’ll not only have this data, you’ll have insight into areas of your business you might not have even thought to look at as well as answers to questions you didn’t know to ask.

Google Analytics is a fantastic tool for understanding your customers, their behavior and journey, and the overall traffic experienced by your booking website. What is the demographic of the people visiting your website? How did they get there? Which webpages did they visit, how long did they stay, and when did they leave? The answers to all of these questions (and more) are available in Google Analytics. All you need to do to get started is sign up for a Google Analytics account and add your analytics code to your booking website, and you can begin collecting a wealth of information about your customer experience and your business.

Check out our tour operator’s Google Analytics glossary for a glimpse of some of the data you’ll have access to once you start using this game-changing tool.

Help Customers Find Your Tours With Google Business Profile

Have you ever searched a business up on Google and found all of their information such as their operating hours, telephone number, and address readily available and neatly displayed on the side? What a time-saver!

You can provide your customers with this same convenience by creating a Google Business Profile. This tool allows tour operators to control how they show up to their audience in search results as well as on Google Maps. In addition to maintaining all of your tour company’s basic contact information, you may also post pictures and interact with your customers by responding to their reviews. Knowing a tour company has taken the effort to properly maintain their Business Profile shows customers that they care about their business and the services they provide. Be sure to update your information if anything changes, like if your hours change at the end of your season. It can be frustrating for a customer to visit your location just to find out you’re closed and that the hours on your Business Profile haven’t been updated.

Google Analytics and Google Business Profile are just two on our list of 9 free SEO tools for tour operators. Make sure to check them out if you’re looking for additional resources and help with strengthening and improving your SEO. You can also learn more about how to drive local growth and bookings using Google Business Profile.

Reach New Markets for Your Tours With Google Ads

As you can see, Google has a tremendous amount of data and insight into how your tour business is performing online. By using this information and taking into account the goals you have for your company, you can pay to advertise your business in a way that is focused, purposeful, and effective. Use Google Ads to promote your tour business or specific tour packages and services with ads targeting exactly who you want, when you want. For example, you can choose to have your ads show up when specific keywords are searched by a certain demographic. 

Google Ads is just one of the many ways to promote your tour packages online. Remember to consider your mobile audience when creating ads or campaigns by building a mobile-friendly website.

Improve the Path to Tour Bookings With Google Things To Do

Last, but certainly not least, there’s Google Things To Do (GTTD), which offers a particularly beneficial service to tour operators and travelers. When a customer searches for a particular destination, attraction, or activity, GTTD will display useful information, ticket prices, direct links to purchase tickets or make a reservation, as well as multiple booking options. What this means for you as a tour operator is that customers will have access to your ticket information and another path to easily find your tours and activities. 

Listing your tour business with GTTD places you in front of the eyes of people who are interested in your activity or your area by displaying you alongside other related business, experiences, and resellers. Tour businesses can integrate with GTTD directly or through an authorised connectivity provider like Rezgo. Talk to Rezgo’s customer success team to learn more about how to set up GTTD with Rezgo.

Closing Thoughts

With so many different tools and platforms to help build, promote, and grow your tour business, Google is an unquestionably important partner for any travel company to have. Learning all the ins-and-outs of each service, whether it be Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Business Profile, or Google Things To Do, is a process that will undoubtedly take time, but is worth the effort. 

While it might feel overwhelming at first, taking advantage of these various Google services will reward the tour operators who do so. Luckily, Rezgo is here to help you along this journey by making it easy to use and integrate with services like Google Things To Do so that you can expand your reach and ultimately increase your bookings. 

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